monsters and men
by liliths
Summary: there is a thing sleeping in the bed across the room. —dean/sam season four brotherly dynamics. for jess on gift giving extravaganza 2014.


**Here, have some Sam and Dean dynamic. For Jess (autumn midnights) on Gift Giving Extravaganza 2014. :3 Word count: 2,267.**

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[monsters and men]

There is a _thing_ sleeping in the bed across the room.

There is a breathing entity with supernatural abilities in that motel, and there is a beast that naps with one paw ready to pounce, ready to kill at a moment's notice if something should stir. There is a dragon on that bed next to his, a creature that hoards gold with the same intensity it holds him prisoner by his side. There is something not human holding him captive, and he can't squirm his way out from under its claws. There is nightmare under his bed, and there is a monster in Dean Winchester's closet.

And the monster is his brother.

Dean Winchester doesn't sleep. He pretends to be dreaming, wrapped up in blankets on his bed, until his brother slips into his own bed. Then, he watches the transformations take place as the thing that used to be his brother morphs into something new altogether. He stands as an alert watchdog, finger on the trigger of his loaded gun, hidden under the covers, ready to aim, ready to shoot, ready to kill.

All he knows is that there is a monster in his closet.

-::-

"Demon blood."

The two words washes over him like the force of an incoming tide, a tear in the fabric of reality. He's hurtling through time and space at the speed of sound, frozen and rigid like an Arctic iceberg floating in the ocean, his limbs heavy with dread and shock. Dean's always assumed that demons didn't have blood. They were simply evil entities made of anti-matter; they were pure conscience on their own, and they could slip into your head and rob you of control over your own body at a moment's notice.

As usual, he assumes wrong.

He knows that his brother's powers come from the demon blood in his veins, a demonic gift from Azazel, the Yellow-Eyed Demon, when Sam was a mere baby in his crib. He knows that his ability to exorcise demons from their meatsuits with only the sheer power and will of his mind was one of the reasons their mother died twenty-six years ago, an extension of a tragedy and an aftershock of an earthquake. All Dean Winchester knows is that Mary Winchester died to protect her sons, and now, Sam is simply casting their history and their morals aside for power over the demons.

"Alright, let's hear it."

White-hot fury washes over Dean, tides of rage slamming onto a sandy beach. How could Sam stand there and act as if what he did was impossibly messed up and wrong in every sense of the word? How could he simply stand there and look nonchalant about his powers, powers given and taken by the sons of bitches who killed their mother?

He manages to swallow his fury and keep a straight face. If he drops the act now, he could lose the only chance to trap the monster in his closet up in a cage and lock it up for good.

Dean's scared, angry, and he thinks that he isn't thinking straight. And that makes him dangerous.

"What?" he replies, trying to keep his voice free of emotion, of anger.

"Drop the bomb, man. You saw what I did back there. Come on, stop the car. Take a swing."

As tempting as it sounds, Dean continues his monologue. "I'm not going to take a swing."

"Then scream, chew me out."

"I'm not mad, Sam." He's positively furious, but at the same time, there's a stronger emotion overriding the anger, eating away at his mind and robbing him of the love he once felt for his brother, the willingness to go to Hell rather than carry out life alone. A small part in the back of his mind notes how strange the emotion of fear destroys his capability of thought, creeps over his shoulders with spidery tentacles and eats his ability to think.

"Come on," his brother continues. "You're not mad."

"Nope."

"Right. Look, at least let me explain myself."

"Don't. I don't care."

"You don't care?"

"What do you want me to say, Sam? That I'm disappointed? Yeah, I am, and you know that fact as well as I do. But, mostly, I'm just tired. I'm done. I am just done. I'm _past_ done."

Sam tries to start again, but he's interrupted by the ringing of a cell phone. Dean has to keep himself from breathing a sigh of relief, and he tries his best not to drive his polished Impala twice as fast as the speed limit allows in his hurry to get to Bobby's, to simply get out of the car and get away from the monster riding shotgun.

-::-

"What's the demon problem then?" he asks cheerily once they arrive, clapping his hands together in front of him as if they were in a business together and not a conspiracy against each other; Dean almost thinks it's sarcasm. No matter how good of an actor he is and no matter how real of a backdrop Bobby set up, the world is not a stage, and the dragon is not so easily tricked into his cage.

He exchanges looks with the older hunter, who gives him a small nod.

"Go inside," their father-figure said, opening the door into their panic room. "I want to show you something."

Sam walks in, so certain of himself. Dean feels his heart at his throat, pounding out a tempo so rapid he thinks it's weird how Sam and Bobby haven't heard the "thud-thud-thudding" by now. He feels emotions bubbling up to his mouth like vomit after food poisoning, and the hunter almost laughs at their success.

"What's the problem?" he asks again, looking around the panic room.

"You are," Bobby replies. Dean breathes a sigh of relief. "This is for your own good."

Dean has trouble not slamming the iron door at the speed of light and twisting the lock at double that speed. Bobby says it isn't good for the hinges.

-::-

Dean listens to his brother's banging and yelling from down below from the ground floor of Bobby Singer's house. The panic room was safe for whatever wished to reside inside, but it certainly provided the safest cage in the world, the sturdiest of sangkars. Somehow, Sam's cries for help are twisted and changed as particles collide against each other, traveling to Dean's ear in the form of demonic shrieks of rage, the roaring of a trapped dragon.

He pours himself a drink and sits down, rubbing his weary eyes.

The older brother doesn't hear what Bobby Singer says to him until one line—one ludicrous and impossibly insane group of syllables—jump out from what Dean thinks is a monologue he can't be bothered to care about, a series of questions he answers with lack of interest.

"Maybe the reason he is here and not on the battlefield where he should be is because we love him too much."

He knows it's not true; he simply wants to throw down his glass in sheer anger and confront the older man for trying to assume what he felt like, but he nods along with what Bobby says. "Yeah, yeah," he mutters in agreement.

Dean takes a sip from his glass of alcohol, feeling the liquid burn its way down his throat and rejoicing in the temporary numbness it provides him.

Love. Fear. Everything turns into complicated meshes and bland shades of gray in Dean's mind, no distinction from one or the other. His mind wanders, and a little part of his thoughts nag him to re-consider if he feared or loved his brother.

"Is it just me or is it a bit too quiet?"

Immediately, the alcohol fades from his veins as adrenaline takes its place, the dull grayness morphing into different mixtures of different shades of fear. Dean Winchester rushes down the steps, Bobby Singer at his heels. The two reach the panic room door in perfect sync, and Dean rips open the metal plate which allows him to see inside without physically opening the door.

He finds nothing. He finds nothing awaiting him in the room, and he finds no traces of the monster. He sees only frighteningly silent emptiness until his eyes land on a shadow, crouched in the corner.

A little oh-so-familiar boy looks up at him, and as soon as Dean blinks, he's gone, vanished into the air along with the monster. A question wilts in his throat, and Dean chokes with the effort to cough it back up. "Sammy?"

Something inside of Dean Winchester's head gives his mind a little jab, lifting the foggy condensation previously obscuring the truth.

Brother, monster.

Monster, brother.

The monster is his brother, yes, but his brother _is also _the monster. The words are so inextricably linked. They are so often muddled in the mind of Dean Winchester, he doesn't pause to think that there is a difference.

Sam Winchester isn't the monster. Sam Winchester is his brother. The monster is simply a thing that takes hold of him in the dark hours of night—a Hyde to match his Jekyll, demon blood the drug to set off the transformations. If there is a part of the old Sam still left inside his brother, Dean needs to try to bring him back.

Dean's willing to play Seek.

He's willing to hand himself to the angels.

-::-

It's not as if he doesn't know that nothing ever ends well for the pair of them. There's always a loophole they previously overlooked, a plot hole they forgot to fix, feints within feints they failed to recognize, enemies two steps and a half ahead of them, well on their way to victory over the two brothers.

He pulls out his phone, dials a series of numbers, and presses the device to his ears.

"Look, I'll just get right to it. I'm still pissed, and I owe you a serious beatdown. _But_, I shouldn't have said what I said. You know, I'm not dad. We're brothers. You know, we're family. And, uh, no matter how bad it gets, that doesn't change."

He pauses, breathes, shoves a tear down.

"Sammy, I'm sorry."

Dean flips his phone shut with a snap.

Vibrating particles of air collide with one another as sound travels as they always do, but in the end, monsters cannot understand men. The apologies and raw emotions pouring out of Dean Winchester's mouth fails to register in Sam's mind.

Sam listens to his voicemail, and instead of hearing his brother's sincere apologies, he hears threats and rage of a hunter closing in on his prey. "Listen to me, you bloodsucking freak. Dad always said I'd either have to save you or kill you. Well, I'm giving you fair warning. I'm done trying to save you. You're a monster, Sam—a vampire. You're not you anymore. And there's no going back."

On two sides of the world, a monster and a man turn their backs in the opposite direction in search of what they believe is right. To the green-eyed man, he was saving the world by handing himself over to the angels and saving what humanity was left in his brother as well. To the green-eyed monster, he was also doing the correct thing, fixing the cities he destroyed and righting his wrongs, to use the darkness inside of him for some greater purpose, to stop the _apocalypse_.

The Winchesters draw in a synchronized breath.

-::-

When Dean sees Sam, his eyes also lock upon Dean, and for the first time in over forty years, Dean knows he's truly his brother, demon blood out of his system and his eyes pure and innocent once again. The ground shakes, blocks of cement fall, dust rains, Lucifer's cage is opening, and Ruby's blood soaks into his sock, warm and red.

He clings to his brother, a lifeline he's not willing to ever let go.

As they watch the circular formation of red liquid on the floor, a pattern made by Lilith's own blood, Dean catches his brother's eye. The world is ending before their eyes, but they still have each other.

-::-

There is a _thing_ sleeping in the bed across the room. There is a breathing entity with supernatural abilities in that motel, and there is a beast that naps with one paw ready to pounce, ready to kill at a moment's notice if something should stir. There is a dragon on that bed next to his, a creature that hoards gold with the same intensity it holds him prisoner by his side. There is something not human holding him captive, and he can't squirm his way out from under its claws. There is nightmare under his bed, and there is a monster in Dean Winchester's closet.

But that's okay with him. Somehow, he feels indifferent about it. Somehow, the monster next to him is his brother.

They're family.


End file.
